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Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period pp 105–122Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Testing for Demonic Possession: Scribonius, Goclenius, and the Lemgo Witchcraft Trial of 1583

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic ((PHSWM))

Abstract

Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter discusses the epistemology of demons in the context of German school philosophy. He shows how philosophers contributed to demonological debates as philosophers, by trying to develop explanations of demonological phenomena within the conceptual framework of metaphysics and natural philosophy. Specific theories—such as those to do with the presence of demons in human bodies—were deduced from and were warranted by more general theories about the presence of spirits in the sublunary world. The late sixteenth-century debate between Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius and Rudolph Goclenius over the efficacy of an investigative method used in witchcraft trials, the so-called “water test” (Wasserprobe) serves as a case study that demonstrates the inherent difficulties in providing a rational explanation of the presence of demonic forces in nature. Heßbrüggen-Walter concludes that theories about knowing demons cannot be understood in isolation. Historians of philosophy should finally acknowledge that demonology and its philosophical underpinnings are a part of their own disciplinary tradition that must no longer be ignored.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Brian Levack , The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 3rd edition (Harlow: Pearson, 2006), 23. Estimates as to the number of executions have been revised downwards in recent years. H. C. Erik Midelfort, for instance, argued that around 70,000 people had been killed. See his “Alte Fragen und neue Methoden in der Geschichte des Hexenwahns,” in Hexenverfolgung. Beiträge zur Forschung - unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des südwestdeutschen Raumes, ed. Sönke Lorenz and Dieter R. Bauer, 13–30 (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1995), 15. For his part, Wolfgang Behringer placed the number around 100,000. See his “‘Erhob sich das ganze Land zu ihrer Ausrottung…’ Hexenprozesse und Hexenverfolgungen in Europa,” in Hexenwelten. Magie und Imagination, ed. Richard van Dülmen, 131–69 (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1987), 165.

  2. 2.

    The overview in Stephan Meier-Oeser, “Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Angels: A Comparison,” in Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry: Their Function and Significance, ed. Isabel Iribarren and Martin Lenz, 187–200 (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2008) ends with Melanchthon. Anja Hallacker’s “On Angelic Bodies: Some Philosophical Discussions in the Seventeenth Century” in the same volume, 201–14, focuses only on Jacob Böhme, Henry More, Anne Conway and the hermetic tradition. Véronique Decaix, “The Devil in the Flesh: On Witchcraft and Possession ,” in Embodiment: A History, ed. Justin E. H. Smith, 299–306 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) draws a distinction between witchcraft construed as a result of a conscious decision of a woman to give herself to the devil , and as a mode of demonic possession that may well be involuntary. The authors under consideration here presuppose a presence of the devil in the body of a witch without making any assumptions about the circumstances that have caused this presence.

  3. 3.

    Lisa Shapiro, “Revisiting the Early Modern Philosophical Canon ,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (2016): 365–83 on 368–70, distinguishes two: a pedagogical function, e.g. in the creation of syllabi; and a legitimizing function by showing how early modern discussions can be connected to contemporary philosophical debates.

  4. 4.

    A defense of “presentism” along these lines can be found in Yitzhak Y. Melamed, “Charitable Interpretations and the Political Domestication of Spinoza, or, Benedict in the Land of the Secular Imagination,” in Philosophy and Its History: Aims and Methods in the Study of Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Mogens Lærke, Justin E. H. Smith, and Eric Schliesser, 258–77 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), passim.

  5. 5.

    Stuart Clark , Thinking with Demons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 4.

  6. 6.

    Ibid.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    The following summarizes the findings of Diana Kremer, in her “Von erkundigung und Prob der Zauberinnen durchs kalte Wasser. Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius aus Marburg und Rudolf Goclenius aus Korbach zur Rechtmäßigkeit der ‘Wasserprobe’ im Rahmen der Hexenverfolgung,” Geschichtsblätter für Waldeck 84 (1996): 141–68 on 153–5 and 160–4.

  9. 9.

    We can only speculate with regard to Scribonius’s connection to Lemgo. His Marburg colleague Bernhard Copius, who contributed a preface to the first edition of Rerum Physicarum in 1577, had been rector in Lemgo until 1566 and helped during this period to establish a publishing house under the direction of Franz Grothen. See Lothar Weiß, “Bernhard Copius (1525–1581),” in Bernhard Copius und das Lemgoer Gymnasium, ed. Friedrich W. Bratvogel, 43–71 (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2011), 49. Scribonius published numerous books with Grothen. On the biographical background of this generation of West German Ramists in general see Howard Hotson, Commonplace Learning: Ramism and Its German Ramifications, 1543–1630 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 28–30.

  10. 10.

    “Cum die vigesima quinta Septembris … Lemgoviam venirem: biduo post, … tres Sagae sive Veneficae ob plurima et nefanda a se commissa peccata, Senatu consulto extra urbem ignis flamma occisae fuerunt: ejusdemque diei vespere tres aliae protinus, quas illae priores magistratui ceu socias, et suae factionis confortes indicassent, a lictoribus comprehensae, et carceribus mancipatae: sequente autem die circiter horam pomeridianam secundam ad explorandam rei veritatem ante portas urbis in aquas projectae fuerunt, ut videretur, num submersum nec ne iturae essent. Nempe pedibus manibusque ligatae, et vestibus prius exutis hac ratione vinctae erant, ut dextri lateris manus sinistri pedis pollici, et vicissim sinistra manus dextro pedi arcte colligaretur, ut ne minimum quidem se aut corpus suum movere possent. A carnifice deinceps in flumen, millenis aliquot hominibus aspectantibus, et singulae quidem vice tertia conjectae ei instar trunci alicujus lignae innatabant, nec ulla earum submergebatur.” Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius, De examine et purgatione sagarum per aquam frigida epistola (Lemgo, 1583), fol. 2r.

  11. 11.

    “Huic ego spectaculo cum interessem, rei visae novitatem summopere admiratus, utpote quae in aliis Germaniae partibus vix audita esset: de examinis ejusmodi causis et rationibus novisse aliquid cupiens, nihil certi rescire potui, sed dici tantum intellexi ex observatione quidem nonnullorum populorum hanc praeterita aestate consuetudinem introductam esse, … nec tamen ullam hujus judicii sufficientem causam dari posse.” Ibid., fol. 2v.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., fol. 3r. We have no clear idea why Scribonius was asked to submit this letter. He was no jurist and had apparently no previous forensic experience. It is possible that, since the water test had been introduced into the area only recently, the magistrates felt the need to examine this new practice in detail.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., fol. 3v–4v. For details regarding some of the works cited see the remarks by Zekl in Rudolph Goclenius, Von Hexen und Weisen und sieben Künsten: drei akademische Festreden gehalten an der Universität zu Marburg zwischen 1583 und 1598, ed. and trans. Hans Günter Zekl (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2012), 59f.

  14. 14.

    Scribonius, De examine, fol. 3r.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., fol. 4v.

  16. 16.

    Ibid.

  17. 17.

    “Dico itaque Veneficas … nec amplius esse tales homines, quales ante fuerunt: adeoque novam prorsus formam assumere. Sagae scilicet definiri possunt homines essentiam Diaboli, a quo obsidentur, participantes.” Ibid., fol. 5r.

  18. 18.

    “Malus enim iste genius, spiritus et rex aeris, qui causa et origo est delictorum peccatorumque omnium, corda malarum istarum mulierum, et partes reliquas universas ita occupavit, ut totus per totam illarum essentiam, essentiaeque partes singulas substantialiter sit diffusus.” Ibid., fol. 5r.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., fol. 5v.

  20. 20.

    See Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius , Rerum Physicarum Iuxta Leges Logicas Methodica Explicatio (Frankfurt/Main, 1577). Cf. Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius, Rerum Physicarum Iuxta Leges Logicas methodica explicatio … Nvnc denvo recognita, & in plurimis locis emendata (Leipzig, 1581). On his writings in general, see the older literature cited in Kremer, Erkundigung, 155.

  21. 21.

    “Natura autem omnis, vel formata tantum est, vel materiata.” Scribonius, Rerum Physicarum (1581), 21.

  22. 22.

    Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius and Timothie Bright , In Physicam Gulielmi Adolphi Scribonii … Animadversiones Timothei Brighti … (Frankfurt, 1587), 5.

  23. 23.

    “… mentibus divinis materia quaedam inest sua, atque divina, nec corpus ullum.” Scribonius and Bright, Animadversiones, 6.

  24. 24.

    Scribonius, Rerum Physicarum (1577), 35. Goclenius was apparently drawn into the controversy by Johann Antrecht. See Rudolph Goclenius , “Solennis Actus Renunciationis 29. Magistrorum, in illustri Cattorum Academia celebratus Anno Christianae Epoche 1583, die 19. Novembris: continens orationem de natura sagarum in purgatione et examinatione per Frigidam aquis innatantium,” in Panegyrici Academiae Marpurgensis: Hoc est: Selectae aliquot orationes, in publicis illius Academiae congressibus ab eiusdem professoribus habitae, ed. Paul Egenolph (Marburg, 1590), 192. The jurist appears again as dedicatee of a 1601 dissertation with Goclenius as praeses. See Rudolph Goclenius and David Battenfelt, Disquisitiones Philosophicae: Ex. Artium Liberalium Fontibus Collectae (Marburg, 1601), n.p.

  25. 25.

    Goclenius, Solennis Actus, 191–2. Accordingly, the moral, juridical, and theological dimensions of the “water test ” are beyond the scope of his analysis.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 193.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.

  28. 28.

    Cf. Goclenius, Solennis Actus, 195. Zekl claims an exactly reverse relationship between Goclenius and Scribonius: Scribonius is thinking in terms of physical interaction, Goclenius argues from the point of view of spiritual immateriality. Cf. Goclenius, Von Hexen, 48.

  29. 29.

    Rudolph Goclenius, Lexicon philosophicum, quo tanquam clave philosophiae fores aperiuntur (Frankfurt, 1613), s.v. “Spiritus.”

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 194–5.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 194.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 196.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 197.

  34. 34.

    Ibid.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 199.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 197.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., 198.

  38. 38.

    Rudolph Goclenius, Disquisitiones philosophicae (Marburg, 1599), 9.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 8.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., 9.

  43. 43.

    Goclenius, Solennis Actus, 203.

  44. 44.

    Goclenius, Disquisitiones, 9.

  45. 45.

    Ibid.

  46. 46.

    This view is usually associated with Aquinas. See Tiziana Suárez-Nani, “Angels, Space and Place: The Location of Separate Substances according to John Duns Scotus,” in Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry: Their Function and Significance, ed. Isabel Iribarren and Martin Lenz, 89–11 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 91–3.

  47. 47.

    Goclenius, Disquisitiones, 9.

  48. 48.

    In a side note, Goclenius calls this “Scotus’s thesis” (sententia Scoti). On Scotus’s views regarding the location of angels see Suárez-Nani, “Angels, Space and Place,” 106.

  49. 49.

    Goclenius, Disquisitiones, 10.

  50. 50.

    Clark, Thinking with Demons, 249.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Daria Drozdova, Ilya Guryanov, and Martin Lenz for helpful discussions, and to Jörg Walter for his visit to Darmstadt university library.

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  1. National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter

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  1. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA, USA

    Michelle D. Brock

  2. University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, Canada

    Richard Raiswell

  3. Brandon University, Brandon, MB, Canada

    David R. Winter

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Heßbrüggen-Walter, S. (2018). Testing for Demonic Possession: Scribonius, Goclenius, and the Lemgo Witchcraft Trial of 1583. In: Brock, M., Raiswell, R., Winter, D. (eds) Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75738-4_5

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